On August 26, the Call of the Mountain expansion will be released, which will add the new Targon region, as well as several maps and champions to already open regions. I am not a constant, but often return to Legends of Runeterra (LoR, hereinafter the name of this game will be shortened to 3 laconic letters), the player will answer the question: “This is another copy Heartstone or something new?»
It’s like LoL, only CCG
Release took place on April 30 Legends of Runeterra, TCG in the universe League of Legends. The first thing the players saw and what is remarkable about the game is the field on which your half is divided into two parts: Creatures are placed on the one closest to the player, and on the far side they go into battle or defend themselves from attackers.
On the right there are three additional cells that are filled if you did not spend mana from the main ones on the last turn. However, they can only be used to cast spells, not creatures
The battle itself occurs as follows: The attacking player places his fighters in a row, and the defender places his fighter opposite each attacker. On the next turn, players switch roles and defenders become attackers, and attackers become defenders.
It matters who you put against your opponent and I seem to have lost in this game
The order of the moves is also interesting. Instead of the player playing his cards in any number, as long as there is enough mana, LoR after playing one card (although there are exceptions among spells), the turn passes to the opponent. Thanks to this, the value of a timely played card is quite high, and games become dynamic.
For every card there is another card.
Another feature Legends of Runeterra is the ability during the game to respond with a spell to a spell, and here there is already a similarity with MTG. As in it, the player is shown the spells that the enemy is using, gives the opportunity to do something, cancel the enemy’s spell or strengthen the creature that will receive damage. By the way, there is a “combat fate” on the field which I didn’t know how to fit into the beginning of the text because I’m a noob showing the near future. If after using several spells you don’t know what will happen next, fate will help you.
Hmm, nothing good is coming for me
Spells are divided into three types: slow, fast and explosive.
The difference between one and the other is that slow ones cannot respond to the enemy’s actions, unlike fast ones, which are often used for precisely this purpose, and explosive ones work instantly and nothing can be done with them (their use does not even count as a move, so you can play other cards).
Pick a card, summoner
Card game by League of Legends would not be such if there were no champions there. Champion cards can be upgraded as the battle progresses by completing a specific task, which is different for each champion. After completing this task, both the champion and his copies in the deck improve, so there is no need to worry too much about the death of the champion, progress will not be lost. Another feature is that you cannot field two identical champions. When a player places his champion on the field, the copy in his hand turns into a specific spell. If the champion dies, the opposite happens.
There are many champions (at the time of writing the review, 35) and each has its own characteristics, both unique (creating spells, summoning a double) and combat (some are good in attack, others in defense, some can cause a lot of damage to fighters and/or the nexus, others support their own).
Also, champions are usually the basis of the deck. Other cards are needed to protect the champion and/or increase his level as quickly as possible. Maps from his native region will help him with this.
Wide and vast
Initially there were 6 regions, Noxus, Demacia, Shadow Isles, Freljord, Ionia and Piltover\Zaun. The Tide expansion introduced Bilgewater, and the Call of the Mountain expansion will add Targon. As you can see, it’s not difficult to guess which regions will be next in major additions.
Runeterra is divided into https://magic88casino.co.uk/ regions and each map belongs to one of them. Regions have strengths and weaknesses. Noxus has good attackers, but weak defenses, unlike Freljord, which has many durable fighters and few damage spells. Piltover\Zaun deals a lot of damage through spells, but will not be able to save its creatures, unlike Ionia, which can return creatures to its hand and increase its life reserve for 1 turn. During deck building you can take 40 cards and 6 champions from two regions and as you can see, each region can work well in synergy with another region.
This is also true for champions, whose potential can be more fully revealed by cards from non-native regions. For example, to improve Eliza, you need to have 3 spiders on the field. Elise is from the Twilight Isles and there are spider cards in this region. However, spiders are frail and do not cause much damage. But Noxus also has spiders and increased damage. Thus, an aggro deck is obtained, with Eliza at the head, which can create and strengthen, with the help of Noxus cards, these spiders and throw them at the enemy.
Here’s what it looks like in practice
Of course, no one forbids using one region or not having champions in the deck, such decks do exist. However, it is better not to play ranked games with them. Well, the coolest thing, in my subjective opinion.
LoR reveals lore
And it’s true. Me as a level 98 player LoL and reader of biographies of champions, I believe that Legends of Runeterra that’s what they do best.
The fact is that before we had models of champions who threw a couple of phrases at each other, their backstory and art were either landscapes of the champions’ native lands, or the champions themselves frozen in some kind of action + there are stories where the champions were either in the leading role or somewhere nearby.
As you can see, I used the word "champion" a lot of times and not once "local", "lone soldier" or "quiet yordle". Because they were the background both in the art and in the stories. Now it’s all wrong.
Now we know what the inhabitants of Ionia, the gladiators of Noxus, the sea monsters near Bilgewater and the loyal defenders of Demacia (which also include cooks) look like. They are drawn and have some lines. This may seem like a pretty weak achievement, but the story always revolves around champions, so this revitalization of the extras looks pretty cool.
In addition to people and other fauna, Poros live in Runeterra, and as it turns out, in all regions. This reveals the world of the League from a rather interesting side.
And since I asked the question about the clone at the beginning Hearthstone, implying a comparison with it further, it is worth saying that the creatures in LoR not three replicas (during appearance, attack and death), but much more.
The specifics of the regions are also explained through lore. Noxus is a conquest empire, so it’s good at attacking, and Freljord is a mountainous area, with a constant raging winter, so their creatures are very tough.
Particular attention should be paid to champions. Firstly, when transferring 3D models into maps, developers had to choose which skills to take, because in LoL each has 5 skills (4 active and 1 passive). They also conducted surveys among players to understand how players associate this or that champion and whether they conveyed this correctly in the form of cards. More details can be found on the official website.
I would like to note the dialogues that take place between creatures and champions. Here is an example of a dialogue that reveals the biography of two champions. There are two warriors, Darius and Garen. One from Noxus, the other from Demacia. They are both used to standing in the forefront and leading the troops. This is what their dialogue looks like:
-Darius, for a warrior, honor comes first
-For a warrior, victory comes first
These two phrases reveal both the regions they come from and their views.
Everything is free, but you have to work hard..
We’ve talked about decks, now it’s worth saying where to get the cards from, and I’ll start from the very beginning, when the game starts for the first time. And here we are greeted with a set of fights, each of which demonstrates one or another mechanic (except for the first one, which teaches the basics). The problem is that there are now 19 of them and with the increase in the number of mechanics there will be even more. Nobody forces you to go through them, but otherwise you simply won’t understand what the enemy is doing. And this approach can scare away newbies. At least because LoL It’s not the usual fantasy, they didn’t include orcs and elves, and throwing remarks between champions for someone who doesn’t know the lore will yield nothing.
The bright side of entering the game is the three ready-made decks that the developers provide and during the first week they will give various bonuses every day.
On day 7, the “Shadow and Cold” deck is given. The cards that are shown here are initially not yours, so in addition to the compiled deck, 8 new cards are also given
However, these are bonuses for beginners, after which there are only 2 ways to get new cards and they are all related to grinding. Many people have mentioned this, so I’ll go over it briefly.
For victories and simply participating in the game, you are given experience which is used to unlock chests with maps of a certain region, you choose the region yourself. The same experience is also used to improve the chests that will be given to you once a week. Chests may contain wild cards that can be exchanged for certain cards, depending on their classification (common, rare, epic, champion).
This is what the line of chests looks like in Piltover and Zaun
And if in Valorant opening agents through grind seems unnecessary, in League of Legends partially justified, then LoR it fits perfectly. True, there is one drawback, the cards are collected quite quickly, so now there are many players who have everything and with basic decks a beginner may simply not have fun. For this, there are expeditions where you yourself assemble a deck from the proposed options. They give a lot of experience, so if you aim for a specific combination, you can collect it quite quickly.
So what’s the main catch??
First, here’s another dialogue. It takes place between Miss Fortune and Twisted Fate. Twisted Faith is a sharper who has magic cards, Fortuna is a bounty hunter who is often lucky. When Twisted appears on the field, Fortune begins the following dialogue:
Now in more detail. As the developers themselves write, in CCGs the balance between variability and randomness is important. If there is more randomness, then the player will feel that nothing depends on him, and if there is a bias towards variability, the player can predict the end of the game, which does not correspond to the essence of card games. And the developers did not fully achieve this balance, going slightly overboard with variability.
It doesn’t particularly interfere with playing, but it does leave an unpleasant impression. For example, I said that decks are usually built around champions. Here’s the loading screen before the game
The player sees what champions the enemy has and can imagine how he will play. It’s a little disturbing. In the same Hearthstone we only know the class of the opponent’s deck and cannot immediately understand whether he will play through murlocs or make a more cunning combination (I don’t like murlocs). There are also problems with the power of some cards, which may cause a beginner to panic.
Now one of the patches has changed the spell from explosive to quick, so you can cancel it or kill the creature you want to cast immortality on. But before.
Of course, experienced players will bypass such immortals, stun them, or return them to the owners’ hand (if they’re Ionians), but at first you’re simply lost when your opponent does this. As for me, the game lacks cards that would be a counterattack against such spells in some regions. Compared to Hearthstone, then there was a separate category of community cards where you could, for example, take an owl with silence for 3 mana, but here it won’t work. Therefore in Legends of Runeterra fate decides more, although there is room for fortune.
Well, to play or not to play?
Definitely playable for fans of the world of Runeterra, and also advisable for CCG fans to get acquainted with. Because although this game may not be surprisingly simple, it is definitely incredibly exciting. And most importantly, it has its own identity, as it differs in many ways from other games in this genre and provides a new gaming experience. Enjoy your games.